'Do I Charge What I Am Technically Owed?:' Mechanic Fixes Customer’s Starter Issue in 2 Minutes. What Should That Cost?

You wouldn’t know it from how people casually diss mechanics, portraying the profession as veiled thievery, but many of them truly do have ethics and standards. Some even ascribe to the Automotive Service Excellence (ASE) code of ethics, which emphasizes only doing work on a vehicle that they “believe to be necessary” and “treating an owner’s vehicle” as they would their own.

Ethics aren’t just about honesty with parts or labor. A recent TikTok created by JDL Mobile Repair (@jdl_mobilerepair) racked up over 15,000 plays by asking: If a mechanic solves a problem in minutes, what’s the “right” price to charge?

The Hawthorne, New Jersey-based rolling business told a story about a repair that ended before the runtime of some Ramones songs. Motor1 reached out to the business for comment by email but didn’t immediately receive a response. We will update this post if they respond.

“Do I Do What Is Right?”

JDL Mobile Repair’s mechanic spoke from the seat of a car, looking down at the phone resting below the dash. 

“Imagine you get a phone call from a guy  stating he needs a starter to be replaced,” the mechanic begins. “You ask him multiple times. Is he certain, positive, sure that that's gonna be the solution to his problem? He says yes. You get the starter, you go out there, and before you even get to start the work, you try to collect the full payment. Because that's the way it works with me.”

The mechanic explains that he collects the payment up front in his business because there are scenarios where he does the job the customer asks for but it doesn’t fix the problem. Then the customer doesn’t want to pay because, as he puts it, “you didn't fix it.”

“The problem is, before I can collect the payment,  he hands me the keys, like,  you know, do you mind checking it real quick,” the mechanic says, continuing the story about the two minute repair job. “And of course, I fold. He looks like a cool guy. He's got his grandma there staring me down. Sweet lady, whatever. But I fold.” 

JDL Mobile Repair’s mechanic says he then grabbed the key, put it in the ignition, and heard a sound that clearly indicated that he was dealing with a dead battery and not what his customer ordered. He then grabbed his jump starter, hooked it up, and the car started right up, proving the low batter theory. 

“So now the moral dilemma is, do I charge what, technically, I am owed?” he asks the camera.

“Technically, by signature and on the paperwork,  it is what I'm technically owed. The part and the labor for the job that we had agreed upon. Or do I do what is truly right? what feels right in here, and just charge him for a jump start?”

The Lesson: Diagnostics May Be Cheaper

JDL Mobile Repair says he ultimately just warned the customer that in the future, they should pay for him to run a diagnostic.

Had he followed through on the contract as the customer wanted, they would have paid much more for parts and services that they didn’t need—sort of like conducting unnecessary surgery. All because they didn’t want to pay for a diagnostic that would have quickly illuminated the existence of a dead battery.

“So this is a good learning lesson  just to, you know, keep that in mind,” he says, before warning people that they aren’t trained mechanics. “People keep thinking that they can just call me up and tell me what to do and that that's gonna take care of the problem. You don't have the basic understanding of how vehicles work.”